Haunted Lines and True Cliches
by kitkatritrat
Summary: He trusted me, and even that I could forgive him. One shot songfic, based off of Taylor Swift's song 'Haunted'. For the NEW Ultimate Taylor Swift Competition. -Kit Kat


_**I do not own Harry Potter.**_

_**Yay! My first songfic!**_

_**I'm sorry I previously had the lyrics to the song scattered throughout the piece, but was instructed this was against the rules. I would like to both offer an apology for breaking the rules and ask that my fic not be deleted. Thank you.  
**_

_**-Kit Kat**_

You don't know, you could never understand, what it is like to be truly afraid. May you never know that moment when all that you love is lost. When your love burns so bright all that's left is the ashes.

I've always hated clichés, but if there was ever I time for one it's now, so here it goes.

If you play with fire you're going to get burned.

I should have known, I really should have. But wallowing in the past really isn't my thing. But it's not my fault if it haunts me.

Draco, he was a bomb just waiting to go off. I remember when I was a little kid and I used to try balancing on the edge of the sidewalk, both arms outstretched. It was like that with Draco. Except you're so addicted you can't get off because the adrenaline is killing you, and their's a minefield on either side just waiting to destroy you. To fall off, to even step just to the right or left, would leave you forever scarred. But I was so naïve. I believed in him, in us, in the one fragile line. Those three fragile words. I love you. All I could see was my protecter, my hero, loving me. I could forgive him anything.

You don't know what it's like, looking into those cold grey eyes. Feeling safe for the first time since the one he calls the Dark Lord returned. I was a scared innocent. I needed a protecter. The lines were so blurry, so I decided to look only at him, and not those lines. Yes, there was only one line I believed. I love you.

It was too quiet, with the Ministry trying to hush everything up. I couldn't help thinking of the danger lurking behind every corner, how no one is safe. And yet people moved on with their lives with smiles on their faces, because they all believed they wouldn't be the next one to disappear.

I was one of them, one of they horrible naïve. I lived off the lies they fed me. _You're safe,_ they said. _Harry Potter is a liar,_ they said. _Diggory's death was a tragic accident, _they said. I'm almost glad I believed them.

I was in my third year and enjoying all of my new classes. Professor Trelawney insisted I had a knack for Divination. That was until I made the mistake of reading my own future. I dropped the subject the year after.

That was the year I first met Draco. He was something perfect and unattainable. Something you wished for because you knew you could never have it. I'm going to use another cliché. Oh, would some one please knock some sense into me for it, too…

Be careful what you wish for.

Needless to say, I got what I wanted. True, it took me a year or so, but I did. Sometimes I think my stubbornness gets the best of me.

I drooled over him from the other end of the Slytherin table. I doodled his name in my notebooks. I came up with crazy scenarios in my mind where he realized I existed. Perhaps that you can relate to?

It started with something as simple as boredom. It's so funny how something you hate so much can become your greatest tool. Boredom is something nearly all high-society purebloods deal with. You're entire life is simply a never-ending cycle. _Get money, spend money, show off, be envied, get more money, spend more money…_

Notice I said 'get' and not 'earn'. Actually, the proper word would be 'inherit' or 'blackmail for'. Considering the fact Draco had spent most his life in this horrible cycle, he was getting bored. But that wasn't the only thing he was getting bored with. Pansy Parkinson had been interesting enough, for awhile, but staying true to one measly girlfriend just isn't…_entertaining. _

It was so easy, I could scarcely believe it. To simply slip in, to make yourself noticed. To get his attention. Slowly but surely I became his conniving little friend with an agenda of her own. You should have seen me. Fourteen and a half and already in the 'popular' crowd. My forth year and I had already turned into a backstabber.

I was so vain, so full of myself. I should've realized I wasn't enough. I watched Draco slip, I watched him fall. I tried to catch him and got flattened in this process. He grew colder, more distant. I saw dark patches slowly appear under his eyes along with a grey tinge to his skin. He looked beaten, cowardly, and undermined. I didn't think he'd tell me, so I asked. I was ready for an all-out begging session ending in a final 'no'. I didn't take into account he actually cared, that he trusted me, that he actually loved me. He told me without the hesitation I had prepared myself for.

"It's Him, Astoria," he told me, his eyes pleading. We were alone in the Room of Requirement. He stood with his white-blonde head bowed as he ran his careful pale fingers down a dark cabinet.

"I have to kill someone Astoria, that's the price he's asked for my father's mistakes," he continues, "I'm one of them now. I'm one of them you fear, I stalk your nightmares through a skull-shaped mask and the only difference you can tell me and the other murderers is I'm too afraid to kill." He turned around to face me. I can see the fear haunt his eyes, I watch it rack his hands. He raises a fist as if to strike and then relaxes his fingers as he reaches forward to take my face in his hands. Then I make the worst observance. He is crying. His entire body is shaking and the wet tears are pouring on my robes. My protecter, my hero, my love is afraid. And there's nothing I can do but tremble with him.

I though I knew who he was. Now I'm not even sure I know what he is. Then he had do go and do the one thing that would leave me forever broken. He left. He tried to kill Dumbledore, and I forgave him. He lied to me, and I forgave him. He treated me like a possession, and I forgave him. He trusted me, and I forgave him that, too. He left me, and that I will never forgive him as long as I live.

I often reminisce about my fifth year. The year Severus Snape was Headmaster of Hogwarts. I look back on that year and recall how much I learned. I learned some things I never wanted to now, of course. Like how to use _Crucio._ But I learned something much more important that that. I learned I meant more than that one line. At first it was like torture, living without him. Liking breathing air without oxygen. And yet I learned to move on. I was standing in the midst of a full-scale war and I was ready to chose my side. No looking back, no turning around.


End file.
